


Right On Target

by LananiA3O



Series: Batfam Week prompt fills [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Swearing, gun ranges, gun use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 13:57:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11314833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LananiA3O/pseuds/LananiA3O
Summary: When Jason goes to the local gun range to work off some frustration from his latest patrol, the last person he expects to meet is Alfred, but not all surprises are of the bad kind.





	Right On Target

**Author's Note:**

> Fourth Batfam Week prompt fill, written for the following anonymous prompt:  
> http://lananiscorner.tumblr.com/post/162300117328/i-see-your-prompts-are-open-can-i-ask-for-some  
> Yes, I know, this is late AF and I apologize for that.  
> @Anon: I hope this story pleases you :)

_Fuck Ghost._

Jason released the trigger, then switched to right hand only.

_Fuck Robin._

He pulled the trigger once more, satisfaction curling his gut as the bullet went straight into the bullseye, right next to the previous round. The Beretta M9 changed hands smoothly.

_And fuck Two-Face._

The rest of his fifteen-bullet magazine followed shortly, each switch and pull faster than before. The sounds were swallowed by the deluge from the heavens and so were his curses.

_Fuck Harv and his entire fucking gang. Fuck the bust at the bank. Fuck Harv for deciding to go after a bank right between their respective patrol routes. Fuck Robin for deciding to rush in at the same time Red Hood had and jumping into his goddamn firing line. Fuck Ghost for showing up to make things worse. Fuck his lecture! Fuck his scowl! Fuck the entire fucking evening and everyone who had had anything to do with it!_

It had all started out so nicely. A quiet night on patrol, not too stressful, but also not too boring. Thankfully, no more Riddler traps. One had been enough, thank you very much. He had foiled a few muggings, caught a serial arsonist red-handed, rescued a pair of half-drunk teenage girls from a gang of would-be-rapists, and had even saved a GCPD cop from bullet to the back of the head. He had not even broken out the guns until the bank robbery, because after disarming that stupid trap of Eddie’s, just beating the crap out of a few bastards had sounded like a splendid idea. It was only once he had walked into the bank – the one teeming with guys armed with AK47s – that he had decided unarmed lone vigilante vs. a dozen armed men was a really crappy idea.

He hadn’t even killed any of them. Okay, three of those guys had to say goodbye to their knees and two to their shoulders, but still, non-lethal. A courtesy to Robin and Oracle, for eight weeks of putting up with the nightmare of keeping Bruce away from Jason, while he recovered from the wounds Croc had given him just before Christmas.

It had not been enough, though. Of course it hadn’t been enough. All it had taken was Robin trying to ‘help’, leaping where he shouldn’t have leapt, and receiving a strafing shot to the leg for his trouble.

He reloaded the gun once more – it was the fourth and last magazine he had rented out, because bringing Red Hood’s own guns to a public shooting range would have been extremely fucking stupid – and emptied it in a succession of quick shots, alternating shooting hands while sending bullet after bullet into the vaguely man-shaped wooden target. The holes were starting to form a spiraling pattern that grew from the middle of the face. He wasn’t even sure why he had done that.

Twelve hours later and he was still pissed. He wondered how long it would last this time.

BANG!

 _That was not a Beretta._ Jason turned to his left slowly, casting a hard glance down the stand. It was two in the afternoon on a Monday and it was raining fucking cats and dogs. The shooting range had been empty when he got here. As a matter of fact, they had been thinking about closing up, now that BPD’s latest runt of lousy recruits had finished their weekly marksmanship training, when Jason had come in, so who the hell—

There was something familiar about the man. Jason couldn’t pinpoint it, but he could tell, even as the second shot from the SIG P226 rang against the prattling of the rain on the roof over their heads. The bullet hit just outside the bullseye, just like its predecessor. The next two hit dead-on.

 _Something’s off about the face_ , Jason mused, and it took his mind a moment to skip past the obvious – the beard, the hair, the wrinkly lines – to realize that it was the texture that was just slightly off. This was not skin. It was latex. His hand went back to his holstered gun – empty, but his opponent did not need to know that – and curled around the grip. The man’s mouth drew into a thin line of displeasure.

“I do hope you are not intending to draw that gun on me, Master Todd.”

“Alfred?” His brain stopped for a second, but his hand lowered nonetheless, re-holstering the gun on sheer reflex. The man in front of him looked nothing like Alfred Pennyworth, but that had undoubtedly been his voice.

“Publicly, I go by ‘James Copper’ these days,” Alfred mentioned as he pulled the trigger once more, sending a bullet into the target’s heart. “This shooting range might allow almost anyone to fire a weapon, but I shall like to think they would draw the line at deceased men.”

The remaining two rounds followed quickly, and Jason had to shake his head at the absurdity of is all. A moment later, rage surpassed whatever amusement had been there. “He shouldn’t have dragged you into this.”

Instead of reloading with the spare magazine he had brought, Alfred holstered his gun and turned to look at him. “My dear boy, there are many things many of us should or should not have done at some point, but there is no point in dwelling on the past. What is done is done.”

Now that he was facing him directly, Jason could see the familiarity in the face despite the mask. The murky blue of those gentle eyes. The mild frown that somehow always managed to look neither threatening nor exasperated. The sheer calm and serenity that seemed to radiate from every inch.

“Did B send you?”

James Copper scoffed at that. “Sadly, no, although I would be lying if I said I did not deliberately choose today of all days for target practice, despite the abysmal weather.”

“So... I’m in for a lecture from you, too, huh?” Jason shook his head slightly as he looked at the targets on the range. Of Alfred’s last two shots, one had hit the arm rather than the chest and the other had gone far off into the fields. He knew it was futile to hope that his words would hit worse than his bullets. “Go on then. Say it.”

“Say what, Master Todd?”

“That I’m hopeless.” He pushed the ear muffs off his head at last, grateful to have the full volume of Gotham’s torrential rain in his head. It had always been a soothing, prattling melody, at least as long as he had a roof on his head, and while the chilling temperatures barely above the freezing mark did nothing to improve his mood, at least they were outside. Fresh air, rain, wide open spaces. It could have been so much worse.

“B already gave me the lecture, but feel free to hammer it in. We do not kill. Guns are lethal weapons of destruction and should never be used. I’m going to get somebody killed. This is not who I am. This is not what you taught me. Go on. Say it.”

Alfred – James – seemed to ponder that for a minute, then straightened out the lapels of his jacket.

“I enlisted in the British armed forces right after finishing school. I joined the SAS as soon as I could. I spent years running missions of anti-terrorism and covert reconnaissance for my country, occasionally in co-operation with Interpol and other multi-national organizations. Over the course of said service, I have, on multiple occasions, had to use lethal force against my opponents, and while I take no joy in the lives I have taken, I do not mourn them either. I own a Sig Sauer of my own and two shotguns, and while I admire your father’s strict resolution never to use firearms or any kind of lethal force, I do not expect anybody else to follow the same standard.”

With a deep sigh, Alfred turned to inspect the targets.

“I am ashamed to say that I have obviously become a tad rusty in my old age. You on the other hand, have clearly turned sharp-shooting into a work of art.”

“That ain’t sharp-shooting,” Jason said over a quick scowl at the targets. “It’s only twenty-five yards. I could hit a soda can at a thousand, if you give me a good rifle.”

“I shall believe it when I see it,” Alfred answered. The smile was in his voice, even if it was lost underneath the mask. “I _do_ believe this shooting range also includes a long-range stretch for SWAT training...”

Jason raised an eyebrow at that. “You gotta be kidding me.”

“I’m not, Master Todd.”

“You don’t really want to see that.”

“Yes, I do.”

The gears in his head were already turning. There must have been a trick somewhere in that suggestion. Maybe Ghost was lurking on the rooftops, ready to take him down. Maybe Dick was waiting by the gun rental counter, ready to tackle him and drag him out of here the moment he went to return the handgun. Except...

 _This is Alfred._ The thought bounced around his skull with annoying clarity. Alfred would not do that to him. Alfred did not lie.

“Fine.” With a deep sigh, Jason turned to pick up the empty magazines and headed for the door. “I’ll go get a rifle.”

There were two clerks at the rental counter. The young one – probably some poor high school kid who was doing that for extra pocket money over the summer – reacted to his request for a sniper rifle with eyes the size of saucers and a stammered ‘wait, is that even legal’, while the grizzled, old bear in charge of actually handling the guns merely shrugged.

“Billy, if I had a nickel for every kid that came in here asking to shoot a sniper rifle or an AK47 or any of the big guns, really, only to dislocate their shoulders and break their fingers on the first shot, I’d be on a beach in Maui by now.” He retrieved a slightly worn M24 and a standard magazine of five .338 Lapua Magnum from the back room of the rental corner, then slid over a form that looked to be twice as long as the standard rental agreement. “Liability waiver. Please sign to confirm that you’ll foot all bills for any and all damage and/or loss of life or limb caused by your potential mishandling of this rifle.”

Jason frowned as he jotted down his name and waited for his driver’s license to be scanned and photo-copied onto the waiver, then followed the youngster as he led them to the far end of the range, where the mountain curved, allowing for longer shots. The last spot on the stand looked like it hadn’t been used in ages. One look at the spider-web-covered mount told him that he would very, very definitely be firing that rifle in a standing position, without stability aids.

“How far to the target?”

He could make out the man-sized piece of wood in the far distance, appropriately colored red against the dreary white and grey of the mid-winter forest. Only in Gotham would someone be crazy enough to operate an outdoor range under these conditions.

“One-thousand and twenty-five yards,” the intern replied in mild awe. “Wind flag’s to your right. Good luck.”

 _Luck!_ Jason scowled at that. Luck was the tool of the amateur. He loaded the magazine, put the rifle in position, and did his best to swallow the memories that were trying to well up. The first time he had ever fired a sniper rifle had been on a dare, too, back in Santa Prisca, when the mercs he had been running with had tried to trick him into dislocating or breaking his shoulder in an attempt to look cool. Instead, he had studied them closely as they had lined up their own shots and had applied his gathered info to his own stance. He had hit all targets dead-on then. He would do it now. One quick look at the flag told him all he needed to know. _Strong wind from northwest, from the sea. Lots of rain._ He adjusted his aim appropriately and slid his finger over the trigger.

“Head.”

The bullet tore through the air with a bang loud as thunder, making the intern next to him jump. Alfred’s lips curled just a tiny hint upwards, whether in amusement of the boy’s shock or satisfaction with the shot, Jason did not know. What he did know was that the wooden man now had a hole where his brain had used to be.

“Shoulders.”

He fired two more shots, each tearing right through the non-existent clavicle.

“Lungs.”

The last two shots hit their targets with pin-point accuracy and Jason felt smug satisfaction curl in his gut as the boy looked at the target through a pair of binoculars, his mouth hanging agape at the sight of five perfectly placed bullet holes, a thousand yards in the distance. He didn’t protest when Alfred claimed ownership of them.

“Sterling effort! I applaud your skills.”

“Thanks.” With the adrenaline slowly fading from his blood stream, the icy cold of the wind and rain suddenly hit him with full force. “I’m done for today.”

He handed the gun back at the rental counter, collected the deposit he had paid for the ear muffs and safety goggles – which he had not worn to begin with because he always aimed better without – and left in quick strides. The rain came down harsh on his hoodie, but he hardly felt it.

What he could feel was the cold, crawling slowly under his clothes and along his skin like a particularly slimy, relentless snake. It brought back memories of tiles and a metal table, of cold water and electricity and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. This was neither the time, nor the place.

“Master Todd...” The umbrella over his head came first, the question second. “Might I ask how you plan on returning home, right now?”

The question was rhetorical of course. The parking lot was empty, except for a jeep in the employee parking space and a perfectly ordinary, black Audi in the customer parking lot.

“I was gonna take a walk to the bus stop on Glen’s Bridge,” Jason muttered sourly. Now his teeth were trying to chatter, too. _Great._

“Nonsense.” Alfred flicked the switch on the car keys and the anti-theft system blinked and beeped shortly. “With your permission, I shall give you a lift to any address of your choice, or at least an appropriate Urbarail station.”

There was no permission to be given, of course. It was merely a formality. Jason had no doubt that Alfred would not relent until he said yes. They had been there too many times during his time as Robin.

And yet, somehow, Alfred’s stubbornness did not bother him, whereas Bruce’ would have sent him into a flying rage. With a quick, muttered ‘ok’, Jason made his way to the front passenger’s seat and slipped into the car quickly. The warmth that suddenly cocooned him made him want to sigh in relief.

The door to the driver’s seat opened and closed almost inaudibly, but he could tell from the quick, sharp gust of cold air that Alfred had entered, too. When the engine still wasn’t running a minute later, Jason finally turned his face to take a look at Alfred.

He was smiling.

“Alfie?”

“Those were five excellent shots, Master Todd. You have great talent and you should be immensely proud of it.”

Jason stifled a hysterical laugh. “Bruce would disagree.”

“Master Bruce is not you,” Alfred replied tersely. “And you are not him. Neither should you be. Master Bruce may think whatever pleases him of your affinity for fire arms.” He paused shortly, then looked straight at Jason, two powder blue eyes full of affection and sincerity. “I, for my part, am very proud of you, Master Todd.”

Jason swallowed hard.

“God bless you, Alfie.”


End file.
